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Clapton Covers Robert Johnson

New album finds guitar legend honoring blues predecessor

Eric Clapton will release an entire album of covers of songs by Robert Johnson on March 23rd. Me and Mr. Johnson will feature the guitar legend's interpretations of fourteen songs by the Delta blues legend, including "Love in Vain" and "Hellhound on My Trail."

Though Clapton released a blues covers album (From the Cradle) in 1994 and made a record with B.B. King in 2000, Me and Mr. Johnson is his first full tribute to Johnson.

Still much of Clapton's career has been inspired by, and a tribute to, the doomed bluesman who died in 1938 at age twenty-seven of strychnine poisoning and was buried in an unmarked grave. Clapton was on the frontline of the British blues movement in 1965, playing with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. With Cream he scored a charting hit with a cover of Johnson's "Crossroads" in 1969, a song that would provide the title of his 1988 box set. Clapton regularly included Johnson covers in his live performances, two of which, "Walking Blues" and "Malted Milk," appeared on his 1992 Unplugged album.

"It is a remarkable thing to have been driven and influenced all of my life by the work of one man," Clapton said. "I think of it as a landmark that I navigate by, whenever I feel myself going adrift. Up until I heard his music, everything I had ever heard seemed as if it was dressed up for a shop window somewhere. At first, it scared me in its intensity, and I could only take it in small doses. I could never really get away from it, and in the end, it spoiled me for everything else."

Track listing for Me and Mr. Johnson:When You Got a Good FriendLittle Queen of SpadesThey're Red HotMe and the Devil BluesTraveling Riverside BluesLast Fair Deal Gone DownStop Breakin' Down BluesMilkcow's Calf BluesKindhearted Woman BluesCome On in My KitchenIf I Had Possession Over Judgement DayLove in Vain32-20 BluesHellhound on My Trail